2012 Goal: Query Nickajack. Last night started a new phase for Nickajack that will see my wife and I find a half hour, even if it’s in two fifteen minute chunks, to read at least one scene of Nickajack out loud a night. It’s a great way to hear the adjectives, the filtering, and the misworded dialogue. The intent is to fix these on the fly and to identify spots where props appear or disappear, character motivations aren’t as strong as they could be, and other plot weaknesses that we can then go back and fix up. This is the novel moving forward in a substantive way for the first time since the birth of our daughter, and it feels good to be back into it. If we push hard and have a good product on our hands, we hope to be ready for the first round of alpha readers by January. No later than March is my hope.

The ultimate plan is two rounds of external readers, the first likely drawn from those who have seen the novel as we’ve crafted it, and the second drawn from those who have no knowledge of the plot or the twists. Each will be followed by a round of editing based on comments. After both rounds are done, then we’ll be querying this bad boy. We likely wouldn’t have made the 2012 query goal even if we hadn’t had a kid, even if we did work straight through, but I’m still glad I set the goal so high. Occasionally you need something completely out of your grasp to keep you jumping.

If you fall into either of the camps that we’re looking to draw readers from, keep an eye out. I’m not looking for volunteers yet, but I will be soon.

In other writing news, I’ve accepted final edits of my story for Old Weird South, and the publisher is hoping that the anthology is out by December 1. I know that dates like this frequently slide, we’ll see about when it will actually come out. If it does hit that date, or up to 30 days later, that will be three short stories published in 2012. Which is awesome. I’ll need to get my ass in gear if I want to match or top that in 2013, and set my sights on some professional rate sales.

State of the author’s beer. Man…I’ve got to bottle that stuff. It’s okay to hang out in the fermenter, but yeah, I’ve got to get that bottled. Maybe that’s a this weekend thing.

State of the author’s bees. They survived the storm in one piece, and now we’re focusing on winterizing them. This means keeping them fed with sugar syrup and pollen so they have reserves to make it through the hard months ahead. That’ll probably be its own post in the next month or two.

State of the author’s baby. Eight weeks old now and super cute. She should start “hatching” over the next few weeks, but she already looks at us and smiles. This is all part of the process by which she’ll learn what is and isn’t a face, and what is and isn’t a person. So while she smiles at us, she’ll also smile at the cats, the wall, and random spots in the middle distance. Still, any smiling is smiling, and it’s awesome to see.

This month is Nanowrimo. The editing I mentioned above is my primary project, but I think I’m going to pick two other goals.

Redraft Vampire of Mars

Finish draft of Antioch, 1098

That’ll be a great start if I am going to try to top this year’s three published stories. Jen Brinn, sage leader of the Cat Vacuuming Society, always cautions to not make sales a goal since they’re beyond the writer’s control…but it would still be nice to at least match this year’s output.

If you’re doing Nanowrimo, best of luck with your projects!

Update: Earlier version of this post stated my baby was eight months not eight weeks old. They grow up fast, but not that fast.

Like this:

After an interminable summer, October absolutely sped past. Anticipation of Capclave and Flashathon likely spurred much of that. Looking back, both feel like they were more than a few weeks ago. Someone needs to harness time’s ability to speed past while being experienced but dilate when being remembered and turn that into a viable method of time travel.

October turned into a great month of micro-production. The week of the 22-28th alone I wrote 15 bits of flash fiction, something I wasn’t entirely sure was possible. At least four of those are stories that I can get longer, or at least better polished, pieces out of. I call this an absolute victory. I’ll probably take some time in November to sort them out, and give them a more prominent place within my flash fiction Scrivener database.

The month opened with me working on one novel project, ripping apart the tangled novels Capsule and Post Apocalypse, and ended with me ramping up another. I talked about that yesterday in my Nanowrimo Eve post, so I’m not going to rehash that here. I hadn’t thought about it while writing it, but that really ended up scooping a lot of my typical State of the Writer post. Half an hour a day working with my wife on the project, probably another half hour translating that into Scrivener, and poking around the flash pieces I want to turn into short stories. Sounds like pretty good goals for the month.

October also delivered to my email a proof version of one short story and an edited version of another. So anthologies are moving full steam ahead.

I want to get meta for a moment and say I like these State of the Writer posts. The same writers’ group discussion that gave rise to Friday’s post about mission statements as writers drove home the need to keep abreast of what you are doing, and what you want to do. That’s what this series is about, a monthly chance to really look at what I did the month before, what I’m hoping to do next month, and what direction I’m moving with my writing. They’re a way of keeping me focused, and they’re a way of keeping me honest, since I’m putting them out there for all to see. Or all who care to see, at least.

So the state of the writer? Anticipatory. I’m getting back into novel production. I’m starting a project I’ve been churning for several months. And I’m seeing if I can work a novel and short stories at the same time. Should be an interesting month.

State of the Writer’s Blog: Anyone who has been following these State of the Writer posts knows I’m trying to collect views from all 50 states. The numbers are dwindling. At the end of September, I only had North Dakota, Arkansas, and Delaware left to collect. This month saw the first visit from Arkansas, leaving just two. I’m hoping to wrap up all 50 by the end of the year. That’s just one a month. That’s not so hard, right? October was also the 4th straight month of blog viewership growth, fueled largely by Flashathon.

State of the Writer’s Beer: Still working through a backlog of suds before I get the next batch going. Might brew at some point this month. Pulled out bottles of both batches for the Flashathon crowd. Mustache Cat got generally positive reviews, Lazarus Ale was more of a specific taste. Responses ranged from hatred to asking for seconds.

So join me as we move into another month. Tomorrow, it’ll be another trip to A Writer Reviews focusing on, of all things, apples. Bonus points to anyone who can guess which two television shows that’ll cover.